Declassified CIA docs on Reagan’s “Star Wars” strategy show difficult balance between projecting power - and projecting too much power

Searching the CIA’s declassified document database, published online after a MuckRock lawsuit, for documents on the Cold War missile defense program nicknamed “Star Wars” shows that the Agency kept a close watch on public perception, but was wary of Soviets thinking that the program was too powerful - which might lead to an uptick in hostilities.

Conservative groups were outraged at what they saw as stifled dissent.

Star Wars wars, in public and private

The CIA kept close tabs on the debate around Star Wars, as hundreds of newspaper clippings show. The clippings generally lack much context or analysis on why they piqued the CIA’s interest, but they do often contain underlined sections, such as this piece highlighting university concern over government-funded classified research and concerns about stifling academic freedom that came with those purse strings :

In fact, three different former directors of the CIA weighed in at various points on the program, often providing a minor “course correction” to public expectations about the utility of the missile defense system.

And finally, Casey was not quoted directly, but was part of the scene at a conservative fundraiser in which another high-ranking official said that the Soviet Union didn’t actually take the threat seriously at all:

Another, more secretive Star Wars program?

Inside the CIA’s declassified vaults is actually mention of another program called Star Wars, and one that seemed to even more summon the destructive power of its Hollywood inspiration. A document entitled “Star Wars Now” details research that scientists hope would allow them to jam enemy communications while disguising the source of the interference (researchers said that it would look like the threat was coming from inside enemy lines).

Ultimately, however, they hoped that they could leverage the Aharonov–Bohm effect to unleash nuclear bomb-level forces, projected from a distant transmitter.

The technology, which never appears to have reached fruition, is described with somewhat fantastic details:

Who knows whatever became of that program. The full memo is embedded below: